The activity of a church
like this is immense and far-reaching, and the bishops who
preside over these organizations throughout the land are among
the most powerful Negro rulers in the world.
Such churches are really governments of men, and conse-
quently a little investigation reveals the curious fact that, in
the South, at least, practically every American Negro is a
church member. Some, to be sure, are not regularly enrolled,
and a few do not habitually attend services; but, practically, a
proscribed people must have a social centre, and that centre
for this people is the Negro church. The census of 1890
showed nearly twenty-four thousand Negro churches in the
country, with a total enrolled membership of over two and a
half millions, or ten actual church members to every twenty-
eight persons, and in some Southern States one in every two
persons. Besides these there is the large number who, while
not enrolled as members, attend and take part in many of the
activities of the church. There is an organized Negro church
for every sixty black families in the nation, and in some
States for every forty families, owning, on an average, a
thousand dollars' worth of property each, or nearly twenty-six
million dollars in all.
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